


The Significance of Four

by swordPrincess



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordPrincess/pseuds/swordPrincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2006. John Egbert enters an online program at the suggestion of a mysterious friend and meets the other kids for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Significance of Four

**September, 2006**

John stared at the login screen for a moment, nervous. He rechecked in his mind that he had everything in order. He'd left pesterchum on, but turned the sounds off, as his mysterious friend had requested. He had a notebook and an assortment of pens and pencils at the ready. His webcam was turned on. He took a deep breath, typed in his information, and navigated to the appropriate section.

A window popped up and a number of split screen video feeds were shown as loading. One part of the screen was divided into four, with his own face showing in one of the spots. The was another, more seperated feed as well. This one loaded first, resolving itself into a grown woman in a professional outfit. The other three loaded to show him three other kids about his age - two girls and one boy.

The girl with dark hair and glasses waved excitedly. He assumed this was the friend that had rather mysteriously messaged him on pesterchum not long after he'd aquired the program. He wondered how she'd gotten his chum handle sometimes, but there were so many things she knew, he'd stopped thinking about it so much.

He waved back a bit and smiled.

"John Egbert?" came the clear voice of the woman.

"Yeah." John nodded as he confirmed this.

"I'm Ms. Blake. I'm glad you could finally join us. You've missed a couple of sessions and will have to catch up. The other three can help you, but I'll ask you not to hold them back, or you will be dismissed from the program."

He nodded and gulped.

She smiled now and he could see her typing something into a keyboard. A message popped up under the video windows.

Ann Blake: 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00111111

John's eyes scanned the text quickly and his eyes lit up.

He typed a response.

John Egbert: 01011001 01100101 01100001 01101000 00100001 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100111 01110101 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100001

"What." The voice came from the other boy on his screen. He was wearing dark, pointy sunglasses. John released a small laugh that probably qualified as a giggle.

John Egbert: 01101000 01100101 01100101

"Good!" Ms. Blake beamed. "I am also very happy to have you join us, John, because that makes our little group here four. That's quite special."

"What could even be so special about four?" the shades boy spoke up again. "It's just a number. A tiny number. I could give you much cooler numbers."

"Don't underestimate numbers just because they are small, Dave," the teacher countered. "Sometimes it is the small numbers in our lives that have the most significance. And there are things about them that even someone with a solid understanding of calculus and higher theories can't quite grasp."

"In certain schools of thought, four is considered the number of completion," a girl's voice spoke up. It came from the light-haired one.

"Teacher's pet," came a low grumble from the boy, whose name appeared to be Dave.

"Yes, I do believe our class is now complete," Ms. Blake stated, ignoring Dave's comment if she heard it. "So now, why don't we introduce ourselves?"

"I'm John Egbert," John told them, despite the teacher having said it when he entered.

"Jade Harley!" came the enthusiastic voice of the bespeckled girl. So he'd been right about her being his friend.

"Rose Lalonde," the other girl stated smoothly. The way she said it made it sound dark and melodic.

"Dave Strider." Dave completed the set of names with a sort of quiet and lazy casual tone.

"Alright. Now I'm not going to waste any more time. I'll start you with a problem to work on together." Once again, John saw the woman type something on her keyboard.

"Together?" Dave complained while she was still typing. "So lame. I bet I could handle this all by myself. I am on that handle like a total boss. Won't ever loose my grip. It's like I'm glued there."

Jade was laughing like the sound of chimes. "You say that like you didn't need my help last time!"

"Oh come on, Jade. Just one little mistake and I can't live it down." As Dave spoke, the problem was entered into their chat screen. John started to read it and bit his lip.

"One little mistake is all it takes to be totally, completely wrong!" Jade stuck her tongue out and her eyes crinkled happily.

"Fuck that, it was an off day." The second the words came out of Dave's mouth, Ms. Blake's calm demeanor darkened.

"What did I say about language, Mr. Strider?" came her voice, with controlled anger. "You wouldn't want to be expelled from the program, would you?"

"Whatever, I'll just go around on the internet and play video games all day," Dave answered her. There was a mix of anxiety behind the words, despite his best efforts to remain casual and uncaring.

"I see you have such wonderful plans for wasting your genuis IQ," the teacher responded with a touch of sarcasm. "What would your guardian think of you running all that potential down the drain?"

"He's cool with my future plans. We'd be bro fisting right now if he wasn't busy at a gig somewhere."

Ms. Blake sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. John was merely baffled by the exchange. He'd never heard a kid and an adult talk like that before.

The topic was changed to the problem at hand and John tried his best to pay attention. This sure wasn't easy. As his mind tried to wrap around it, he felt more and more anxiously aware of the fact that he'd missed a couple days. And also the reason why he'd missed them - he had to retake the exam to be entered, because he had missed the mark the first time around. Jade had encouraged him to try again and he passed. But now he wondered if this was actually a good thing.

After some time, he noticed his pesterchum window was flashing. Oops, he'd forgotten about that.

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 9:17 --

GG: hey john!! :)  
GG: i guess you are paying attention  
GG: well whenever you get this come here!

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] has invited you to chatroom [SN] --

He clicked the link given.

\-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] joined chat with gardenGnostic [GG] turntechGodhead [TG] tentacleTherapist [TT] \--

GG: john!! :)  
TT: Oh, look who the cat dragged in.  
TG: more like the dog dragged in  
TG: the weird hyperactive puppy dragged in  
TG: took him long enough  
GT: um, hi.  
TT: Hello. I'm Rose, by the way. And TG is Dave.  
GT: oh, ok!  
GT: should i add you?  
TT: Sure.  
TG: whatever

John took a moment to add Dave and Rose's handles to his chumroll, which had now tripled in size. He found himself smiling sort of stupidly while he did so, and was promptly embarrassed, remembering his face was plastered on everyone's computer screens.

They all took a moment under the teacher's glare to seriously work on the problem. She couldn't see that they were chatting, but she could tell well enough if they got too distracted.

After awhile, the chat flashed again.

TG: so what the hell was that thing between you and ms blake before?  
GT: um...oh! it was binary! we were talking using only 1's and 0's. it's sort of a language for computers!  
TG: i know what binary is douchebag  
TG: im not stupid  
TG: whats your iq anyway?  
GT: um...  
TT: Dave, you shouldn't be so rude.  
TG: what it has to be over 140 or he wouldnt be here  
TG: cant be that embarrassing  
TT: We've only just met him. You don't have to go at him comparing IQ scores like it's some sort of penis size metaphor.  
TG: what even rose  
TG: it wasnt anything like that  
TG: you are the weirdest girl i know  
TG: no wait  
TG: the other girl i know is jade so nevermind  
GG: heehee!!!! :D

John bit his lip, which was rather easy to do with an overbite. He was having some difficulty keeping up with both the schoolwork and this inane conversation at the same time.

GT: no, it's just that...  
GT: i actually don't remember what it was.  
TG: are you serious? how can you not remember?  
GT: um. it just slipped my mind, i guess!  
TG: are you dumb?  
TG: is it possible for a 10 year old taking college classes online to be dumb?  
TG: i think he might be dumb  
GG: dave! stop being so rude!!! :(  
GG: im so sorry john! dave is being a total butt!!!!!  
TG: ok fine whatever  
GT: it's ok, jade.  
GG: :(  
TT: So when is your birthday, John?

Rose's subject change was something of a relief. Nothing wrong with sharing birthdays. That's what friends did, right?

GT: april 13th!  
TG: aw man lame  
TG: should have been december 2nd  
TG: wouldve been cooler  
GT: why is that?  
TT: Our birthdays are December 1st, 3rd and 4th. So that would have made them all in a row.  
GT: oh. sorry?  
TG: yeah you totally broke the pattern dude  
TG: so lame  
GG: not really!!  
GG: or rather the pattern is not what you think it is! :D  
TG: what  
TT: Our birthdays are on the days numbered 1, 3 and 4. John's birthday also contains those numbers, being on the 13th day of the 4th month.  
TT: Additionally, if you multiply 1, 3 and 4 together, you get 12: our birthday month.  
TG: and if you add them you get 8 which means nothing  
TG: who the fuck cares?  
GG: 8 is the number of infinity and the universe!!!!!!!! :D  
TG: you know what  
TG: i had a sudden attack of not caring  
TG: whatever  
TG: everything means something  
TG: why dont i go divine the future from my poop or something  
TG: suddenly talking about school seems more appealing

With that, Dave started talking out loud about the problem, which he hadn't been so much. The conversation on the chat petered out as they delved into the harder parts. Which was good, because it was hard enough for John to keep up with it without the distraction of the chat client.

Pretty much everything went smoothly until Jade fell asleep.

"Miss Harley?" came the voice of Ms. Blake once she'd noticed. "I wonder if I should speak to someone about her time zone. It's a concern that she has to be here in the middle of the night."

"Nah, don't you worry, Ms. Blake, she sleeps randomly during the day, too," came Dave's voice in response.

Rose agreed and so did John. He'd already noticed this in the short time he'd known her.

"Well, at least I was wrapping today's lesson up, anyway," the woman continued, although the edge of concern didn't leave her voice entirely. "Please one of you give her the assignment when you next see her awake?"

They all nodded and agreed they would tell her what they had to do, and Ms. Blake went on to explain it to them.

The lesson finished, and they all logged off. And not much later, there were two new pesterlog windows open on John's screen.

He decided to tell his new friends all about some of the awesome movies he'd seen.

Life was great.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my weird idea about how the kids met. It kind of got seeded when I was talking to some people about how John isn't really as stupid as he seems to be perceived, and is actually rather smart, just lacks common sense. Then it sort of...went places.
> 
> By the way, the program is sponsored by SkaiaNet. I have other ideas surrounding this, I might get to them someday. Busy with a lot of other ideas lately, though.


End file.
